Guyana should develop a green economy brand, Joseph Williams, Programme Manager – Energy, at the Caribbean Community (Caricom) Secretariat has suggested.
Meantime, Director of the School of Earth and Environ-mental Sciences at the University of Guyana, Dr Paulette Bynoe warned that in the light of climate change, businesses cannot continue to operate as usual. Businesses need to take cognizance of the environment they operate in, she said at a private sector forum recently on ‘Low Carbon – High Growth Opportunities for Private Sector’. The forum was an initiative of the University of Guyana in collaboration with the British High Commission.
Williams said the private sector must become the powerhouse for growth. He said that the government has a significant role in creating vision and an enabling environment but the private sector must be the engine of growth. He challenged the government and the private sector to develop a green economy brand.
Meantime, Bynoe, in her presentation, said the ecological systems cannot continue to be interfered with and society cannot continue to think that technology can fix it. “Nature is not just there bountifully to use however we want,” she said. She pointed out that climate change is an issue for finance and economic ministries as much as for the energy and environment ones. “We need money to solve environmental problems and climate change is no exception to that rule,” she said. According to Bynoe, US$1 trillion is required to “solve” climate change globally and she questioned whether this sum can be garnered from governments alone.
She said there are three economic responses to global climate change and only two should be considered. These are adaption and mitigation while the third response, business as usual, is not an option, she said.
Chief Executive Officer of the Guyana Office for Investment (Go-Invest), Geoffrey Da Silva said that Guyana’s Gross Domestic Product has been diversifying though exports are still mainly from the traditional sectors. Economic activity has been increasing at a substantial rate in Regions Nine and Six, he said while he spoke of several new investments. He said he was in the Rupununi and the Intermediate Savannahs with major investors recently.
Da Silva said that a programme to begin increasing the production of livestock is beginning while “we are pushing aquaculture in a big way”. He said that the government and private sector are working on major long-term agriculture projects. He outlined a strategy where a portion of a company’s land has to remain in its natural state.
He said there are eight sectors that Go-Invest “sort of” tracks and expressed his view that tax holidays are not the way to develop Guyana. There are other incentives, he pointed out.
He noted that there are six call centres in Guyana employing 3,000 people and two more are starting up soon. On the energy front, he said the country’s strategy is not only hydroelectricity recalling the recent drought that limited supplies in Venezuela. “We have not given up on ethanol,” Da Silva said revealing that there were problems in the ethanol market, including speculation, and so they decided to be cautious.
He said that they are in discussions with a major company to produce ethanol from sugarcane.
The Environmental Pro-tection Agency has a crucial role to play in a low carbon development economy, Da Silva added.
